Building energy efficiency for sustainable development in China: challenges and opportunities

Rapid urbanisation in China has resulted in great demands for energy, resources and pressure on the environment. The progress in China's development is considered in the context of energy efficiency in the built environment, including policy, technology and implementation. The key research challenges and opportunities are identified for delivering a low carbon built environment. The barriers include the existing traditional sequential design process, the lack of integrated approaches, and insufficient socio-technical knowledge. A proposed conceptual systemic model of an integrated approach identifies research opportunities. The organisation of research activities should be initiated, operated, and managed in a collaborative way among policy makers, professionals, researchers and stakeholders. More emphasis is needed on integrating social, economic and environmental impacts in the short, medium and long terms. An ideal opportunity exists for China to develop its own expertise, not merely in a technical sense but in terms of vision and intellectual leadership in order to flourish in global collaborations.

A Conceptual Model for Group Support Systems in Local Councils

This paper proposes a conceptual model of a context-aware group support system (GSS) to assist local council employees to perform collaborative tasks in conjunction with inter- and intra-organisational stakeholders. Most discussions about e-government focus on the use of ICT to improve the relationship between government and citizen, not on the relationship between government and employees. This paper seeks to expose the unique culture of UK local councils and to show how a GSS could support local government employer and employee needs.

A conceptual model for group support systems in local councils

This paper proposes a conceptual model of a context-aware group support system (GSS) to assist local council employees to perform collaborative tasks in conjunction with inter- and intra-organisational stakeholders. Most discussions about e-government focus on the use of ICT to improve the relationship between government and citizen, not on the relationship between government and employees. This paper seeks to expose the unique culture of UK local councils and to show how a GSS could support local government employer and employee needs.

The DigiBog model of peatland development 1: rationale, conceptual model, and hydrological basis

Using a literature review, we argue that new models of peatland development are needed. Many existing models do not account for potentially important ecohydrological feedbacks, and/or ignore spatial structure and heterogeneity. Existing models, including those that simulate a near total loss of the northern peatland carbon store under a warming climate, may produce misleading results because they rely upon oversimplified representations of ecological and hydrological processes. In this, the first of a pair of papers, we present the conceptual framework for a model of peatland development, DigiBog, which considers peatlands as complex adaptive systems. DigiBog accounts for the interactions between the processes which govern litter production and peat decay, peat soil hydraulic properties, and peatland water-table behaviour, in a novel and genuinely ecohydrological manner. DigiBog consists of a number of interacting submodels, each representing a different aspect of peatland ecohydrology. Here we present in detail the mathematical and computational basis, as well as the implementation and testing, of the hydrological submodel. Remaining submodels are described and analysed in the accompanying paper. Tests of the hydrological submodel against analytical solutions for simple aquifers were highly successful: the greatest deviation between DigiBog and the analytical solutions was 2·83%. We also applied the hydrological submodel to irregularly shaped aquifers with heterogeneous hydraulic properties—situations for which no analytical solutions exist—and found the model's outputs to be plausible.

The statistical downscaling model-decision centric (SDSM-DC): conceptual basis and applications

Regional climate downscaling has arrived at an important juncture. Some in the research community favour continued refinement and evaluation of downscaling techniques within a broader framework of uncertainty characterisation and reduction. Others are calling for smarter use of downscaling tools, accepting that conventional, scenario-led strategies for adaptation planning have limited utility in practice. This paper sets out the rationale and new functionality of the Decision Centric (DC) version of the Statistical DownScaling Model (SDSM-DC). This tool enables synthesis of plausible daily weather series, exotic variables (such as tidal surge), and climate change scenarios guided, not determined, by climate model output. Two worked examples are presented. The first shows how SDSM-DC can be used to reconstruct and in-fill missing records based on calibrated predictor-predictand relationships. Daily temperature and precipitation series from sites in Africa, Asia and North America are deliberately degraded to show that SDSM-DC can reconstitute lost data. The second demonstrates the application of the new scenario generator for stress testing a specific adaptation decision. SDSM-DC is used to generate daily precipitation scenarios to simulate winter flooding in the Boyne catchment, Ireland. This sensitivity analysis reveals the conditions under which existing precautionary allowances for climate change might be insufficient. We conclude by discussing the wider implications of the proposed approach and research opportunities presented by the new tool.

An application of the GLUE methodology for estimating the parameters of the INCA-N model

The conceptual and parameter uncertainty of the semi-distributed INCA-N (Integrated Nutrients in Catchments-Nitrogen) model was studied using the GLUE (Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation) methodology combined with quantitative experimental knowledge, the concept known as 'soft data'. Cumulative inorganic N leaching, annual plant N uptake and annual mineralization proved to be useful soft data to constrain the parameter space. The INCA-N model was able to simulate the seasonal and inter-annual variations in the stream-water nitrate concentrations, although the lowest concentrations during the growing season were not reproduced. This suggested that there were some retention processes or losses either in peatland/wetland areas or in the river which were not included in the INCA-N model. The results of the study suggested that soft data was a way to reduce parameter equifinality, and that the calibration and testing of distributed hydrological and nutrient leaching models should be based both on runoff and/or nutrient concentration data and the qualitative knowledge of experimentalist. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of two hybrid metric-conceptual models, for simulating phosphorus transfer from agricultural land in the river enborne, a lowland UK catchment

Across Europe, elevated phosphorus (P) concentrations in lowland rivers have made them particularly susceptible to eutrophication. This is compounded in southern and central UK by increasing pressures on water resources, which may be further enhanced by the potential effects of climate change. The EU Water Framework Directive requires an integrated approach to water resources management at the catchment scale and highlights the need for modelling tools that can distinguish relative contributions from multiple nutrient sources and are consistent with the information content of the available data. Two such models are introduced and evaluated within a stochastic framework using daily flow and total phosphorus concentrations recorded in a clay catchment typical of many areas of the lowland UK. Both models disaggregate empirical annual load estimates, derived from land use data, as a function of surface/near surface runoff, generated using a simple conceptual rainfall-runoff model. Estimates of the daily load from agricultural land, together with those from baseflow and point sources, feed into an in-stream routing algorithm. The first model assumes constant concentrations in runoff via surface/near surface pathways and incorporates an additional P store in the river-bed sediments, depleted above a critical discharge, to explicitly simulate resuspension. The second model, which is simpler, simulates P concentrations as a function of surface/near surface runoff, thus emphasising the influence of non-point source loads during flow peaks and mixing of baseflow and point sources during low flows. The temporal consistency of parameter estimates and thus the suitability of each approach is assessed dynamically following a new approach based on Monte-Carlo analysis. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Later Pleistocene evolution of the Exe valley: a chronostratigraphic model of terrace formation and its implications for Palaeolithic archaeology

This paper presents the first systematic chronostratigraphic study of the river terraces of the Exe catchment in South West England and a new conceptual model for terrace formation in unglaciated basins with applicability to terrace staircase sequences elsewhere. The Exe catchment lay beyond the maximum extent of Pleistocene ice sheets and the drainage pattern evolved from the Tertiary to the Middle Pleistocene, by which time the major valley systems were in place and downcutting began to create a staircase of strath terraces. The higher terraces (8-6) typically exhibit altitudinal overlap or appear to be draped over the landscape, whilst the middle terraces show greater altitudinal separation and the lowest terraces are of a cut and fill form. The terrace deposits investigated in this study were deposited in cold phases of the glacial-interglacial Milankovitch climatic cycles with the lowest four being deposited in the Devensian Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 4-2. A new cascade process-response model is proposed of basin terrace evolution in the Exe valley, which emphasises the role of lateral erosion in the creation of strath terraces and the reworking of inherited resistant lithological components down through the staircase. The resultant emergent valley topography and the reworking of artefacts along with gravel clasts, have important implications for the dating of hominin presence and the local landscapes they inhabited. Whilst the terrace chronology suggested here is still not as detailed as that for the Thames or the Solent System it does indicate a Middle Palaeolithic hominin presence in the region, probably prior to the late Wolstonian Complex or MIS 6. This supports existing data from cave sites in South West England.

Pollination and other ecosystem services produced by mobile organisms: a conceptual framework for the effects of land-use change

Many ecosystem services are delivered by organisms that depend on habitats that are segregated spatially or temporally from the location where services are provided. Management of mobile organisms contributing to ecosystem services requires consideration not only of the local scale where services are delivered, but also the distribution of resources at the landscape scale, and the foraging ranges and dispersal movements of the mobile agents. We develop a conceptual model for exploring how one such mobile-agent-based ecosystem service (MABES), pollination, is affected by land-use change, and then generalize the model to other MABES. The model includes interactions and feedbacks among policies affecting land use, market forces and the biology of the organisms involved. Animal-mediated pollination contributes to the production of goods of value to humans such as crops; it also bolsters reproduction of wild plants on which other services or service-providing organisms depend. About one-third of crop production depends on animal pollinators, while 60-90% of plant species require an animal pollinator. The sensitivity of mobile organisms to ecological factors that operate across spatial scales makes the services provided by a given community of mobile agents highly contextual. Services vary, depending on the spatial and temporal distribution of resources surrounding the site, and on biotic interactions occurring locally, such as competition among pollinators for resources, and among plants for pollinators. The value of the resulting goods or services may feed back via market-based forces to influence land-use policies, which in turn influence land management practices that alter local habitat conditions and landscape structure. Developing conceptual models for MABES aids in identifying knowledge gaps, determining research priorities, and targeting interventions that can be applied in an adaptive management context.

A conceptual design of a wireless sensor actuator system for optimising energy and well-being in a building

This article presents a prototype model based on a wireless sensor actuator network (WSAN) aimed at optimizing both energy consumption of environmental systems and well-being of occupants in buildings. The model is a system consisting of the following components: a wireless sensor network, `sense diaries', environmental systems such as heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, and a central computer. A multi-agent system (MAS) is used to derive and act on the preferences of the occupants. Each occupant is represented by a personal agent in the MAS. The sense diary is a new device designed to elicit feedback from occupants about their satisfaction with the environment. The roles of the components are: the WSAN collects data about physical parameters such as temperature and humidity from an indoor environment; the central computer processes the collected data; the sense diaries leverage trade-offs between energy consumption and well-being, in conjunction with the agent system; and the environmental systems control the indoor environment.